More than £5 million recovered from the funds stolen by former Bayelsa State Governor Dieprieye Alamieyeseigha was handed back to the state government in 2012, it was learnt at the weekend.
Nigeria’s retiring High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (UK) Dr. Dalhatu Tafida who broke the news at the at the weekend in Birmingham where he spoke with the Nigerian community on the amount of stolen funds received from the UK by the Federal Government through its High Commission in London.
Tafida’s visit to Birmingham was part of a thank-you-tour as his tenure ends on August 15, after an eight-year stint as Nigeria’s chief envoy in the UK. He had earlier visited Manchester, Liverpool, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Newcastle and Belfast.
According to Tafida, the £5 million was received from the British authorities and handed over to two government officials from Bayelsa State, who came to London for the transfer.
He told his audience that the money was lodged a Bayelsa State government account with the London branch of First Bank Plc.
Alamieyeseigha, who was impeached, tried and convicted, got a presidential pardon in March 2013 – courtesy of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Justifying the clemency extended to Alamieyeseigha, a former presidential adviser to Dr. Jonathan, Dr. Doyin Okupe had told reporters in 2013 that the former governor was pardoned because he had been remorseful.
“He was tried, jailed and dispossessed of his property. He has been remorseful and there is no law against the granting of pardons to any criminal,” Okupe had said.
Alamieyeseigha was arrested at Heathrow Airport in September 2005 by the Metropolitan Police and initially remanded but later granted bail.
In breach of his bail requirements, he left the UK and returned to Nigeria in 2005. He entered a plea bargain in a Federal High Court after being convicted on six counts of making false declaration of assets.
Part of the money recovered, according to the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative of the World Bank, consisted of $1.5 million in cash, seized at the time of arrest and $2.7 million held in bank accounts (Royal Bank of Scotland PLC, Santolina Investment Corporation account in excess of GBP 1.8 million) and London real estate worth $15 million (four properties registered under Solomon & Peters Ltd. as sole proprietor).
In May 2006, a London court ordered the confiscation of the seized cash pursuant to the Proceeds of Crime Act, after Mr. Alamieyeseigha skipped bail and returned to Nigeria; bank accounts and London real estate were confiscated pursuant to a December 2007 United Kingdom High Court summary judgment; and a July 2008 judgment left to confiscation of remaining assets in the United Kingdom, Denmark and Cyprus.
Pursuant to his July 2007 plea in Nigerian High Court, he was sentenced to a two-year prison term and his assets in Nigeria were ordered seized.
Commenting on the alleged refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari to ride in a Rolls Royce from the Heathrow Airport when visiting Britain as a president- elect in May 2015, Tafida said it was untrue that Buhari declined the offer.
The envoy said: “The story is not true. It didn’t happen. I went to the airport to receive him right from the plane. I took him to where he stayed and we left back to Nigeria together.
He rode from the airport with me in my official car, which is a bullet proof Mercedes Benz (marked FGN1). To God who made me, Buhari did not refuse anything we gave him. That was what I gave him for the six days he spent. Even, when he took over, I called him, I spoke to him. Buhari is my brother.”
The retiring High Commissioner confirmed that the High Commision indeed has a Rolls Royce, “but we didn’t send rolls Royce to pick Buhari”.
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